


oroboros

by plingo_kat



Series: WIP Amnesty [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife Fusion, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: “You know how I’m never around for any significant length of time?” Frerin continues at their nods. “Well, there’s a reason for that, and a reason for why I’m naked right now too. I suffer from a rare condition.”Frerin looks at Fili, then, and lowers his voice. “I travel in time.”
Relationships: Fíli & Kíli (Tolkien), Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: WIP Amnesty [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/931191
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's been more than six years... time to accept I'll never finish this. I still like it quite a lot though, I was very proud of how I tied the events of my outline together. So I'm posting it as-is, timeline and all. BE SAD WITH ME ABOUT THE FATE OF THE DURINS.
> 
> (And if you want to take this idea and complete it... go with my blessing.)

**(Kili is 25, Fili is 29)**

“Mother said that Uncle Thorin is supposed to be back soon.” 

Fili turns his head so that he can see Kili out of the corner of his eye, the tangle of his hair mixed with the cool spring grass and the shape of his nose dark against the bright blue sky. The two of them are lying supine in a field watching the clouds. 

“I’d rather Uncle Frerin visited,” Kili says. He shifts a little closer to Fili, his clothing scraping along the ground. “He’s nicer.” 

“Uncle Thorin can be nice,” Fili says. He closes his eyes to better feel the sun on his face. “He gave you toys once, remember?” 

“I don’t want toys,” Kili says with scorn. “I want to be big enough to start weapons training, like you will be soon.” 

Fili makes a “hm” noise. He has his suspicions about why Uncle Thorin is coming back now when he hasn’t visited in the last five years; Kili was so little then that he likely doesn’t really remember Thorin accurately at all. 

“Maybe he’ll bring you a dagger this time,” Fili says. 

“Maybe,” Kili agrees. “Or a bow! I want to learn how to hunt.” 

“Mama won’t let you use a bow.” 

“Mama won’t let me use a dagger, either.” 

“A dagger would be easier to hide than a bow,” Fili says, and is about to go on when he hears a sharp crack, like a branch breaking, and then muffled cursing. 

He sits up so fast that he goes dizzy, black spots swarming across his vision. When he blinks them clear he gapes. 

“Uncle Frerin?” Kili says, already on his feet. “Why are you naked?” 

“Oh,” Uncle Frerin says, the sound drawn out. “It’s this time, is it?” 

“Uncle Frerin?” Fili says. He keeps his eyes on his uncle’s face. 

Kili isn’t nearly so polite. “Wow,” he says, poking at Frerin’s chest and arms. “When I start weapons training, I’m going to have muscles like you. What’s this?” 

He leans closer to inspect something on Frerin’s skin, and Frerin bats him away. “Manners, young Kili. Do try to learn some.” 

“Fili has a birth marking exactly like yours.” 

“Pants,” Frerin insists. “Even one of your shirts will do, so long as I can tie it about my waist.” 

In the end it takes both of Fili’s and Kili’s shirts tied together, one in front and one in the back, to cover up all of Frerin’s indecent parts. He sits with them in the grass, Fili and Kili across from him and next to each other. By now Fili has also noted that the mark on Frerin’s skin, a series of overlarge and deformed freckles patterned under his right collarbone, matches the spots on his own skin exactly. 

“What’s going on?” Fili says. “Why were you naked?” 

“How old are you?” Uncle Frerin asks instead of answering his question. 

“Twenty-five,” Kili says. 

“Twenty-nine,” Fili says. “Uncle Frerin…” 

Frerin blows out a breath, hard enough that his moustache braids, missing their clasps, flutter a little with the movement of his mouth. He looks at each brother in turn, catching their eyes and holding them. His face is serious. “I am going to explain some things,” he says. “They may not make much sense to you now, but I swear that I am telling the truth. You may talk with your mother about it, if you wish, and with your Uncle Thorin when he arrives for your naming day, Fili. All right?” 

Fili and Kili nod. Fili thinks that this must be something dreadfully important: grown-dwarf business. 

“You know how I’m never around for any significant length of time?” Frerin continues at their nods. “Well, there’s a reason for that, and a reason for why I’m naked right now too. I suffer from a rare condition.” 

Frerin looks at Fili, then, and lowers his voice. “I travel in time.” 

**(Fili is 8 and 82)**

Fili wakes with a gasp. It is dark and he has fallen out of bed. His elbow hurts. 

“Mama?” 

There is no answer. If he listens hard he can hear a repeated thumping, like people running inside with their boots on. Mama isn’t in bed, but her covers are rumpled. Kili’s crib is in the corner. When Fili goes to look he is swaddled in blankets and sleeping peacefully. Fili tiptoes away from him; if he wakes up, he’ll start crying loud enough to wake the neighbors. 

The hallway is dark as well, and colder than the room he shares with Mama and Kili. Light is coming from the kitchen, the low flickering of candle-lamps. 

“Clean water,” a male voice says, urgent and unfamiliar. “Boiled, quickly! Lady Dis, d’you have any cloths?” 

“Here, and some brandy to soak it in,” Mama says. She sounds angry, like that time Fili tripped and hit his head on the corner of the dining table and bled all over his shirt until the healer came, her voice low and shaky. 

When he reaches the doorway, he sees an unfamiliar dwarf laid out on the table. A dark red drips over his skin, down his arm and off his fingertips to _plip_ when it hits the floor. There are pale pink and peach exposed bits of his insides set against a deeper wet maroon. His hair is matted gold. 

Fili must make a sound, because Mama and another yellow-haired dwarf turn to look at him. 

“Fili!” Mama says. The dwarf on the table groans and the unfamiliar yellow-haired dwarf stops looking at Fili, bending over to murmur something in the hurt dwarf’s ear. Then Mama’s arms are around him. He clings to her and buries his face in her shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, high and frightened. He wonders if he is having a nightmare, if Mama is holding him in the real world too, brushing his hair away from his face and humming a lullaby. “I’m sorry, Mama.” 

"Shh,” Mama says, a hand cupping the back of Fili’s head. “Shh, my _khudzith_ , shh. I’m here, you don’t have anything to be afraid of.” 

Fili begins to cry. 

**(Kili is 27, Fili is 70)**

Today is the day. Kili thumbs the tip of his bow stave, carved and sanded smooth, and tries not to fidget. 

Fili – his Fili, the Fili that belongs in this time – is away at his new apprenticeship in the forge run by Mister Nemer, who has fiery red hair and no temper to match it. The two of them get along well; Fili’s easygoing nature is reinforced by Nemer’s steady presence. Kili feels unbalanced without his brother by his side but is slowly growing accustomed to the lack of a ready ear and a partner in crime. 

Besides. He’s been noticing some things, recently, that make it less than comfortable to be around Fili all the time. 

The muffled pop that signifies Fili’s arrival is soft but easily noticeable in the stillness of the meadow. He slings his bow over his shoulder and picks up the bundle of cloth lying next to him. 

_“Ugmil-nadad!_ Brother!” 

“Over here.” The older Fili’s voice floats out from behind a tree. Kili can see a glint of gold where the sunlight catches his hair. 

Fili turns to put on his clothing, but that just gives Kili time to stare at the developed muscles of his back, his freckled shoulders and corded arms, the pale skin of his arse and legs. He looks strangely at ease in the loose drawstring trousers and deep-collared smithing shirt Kili unearthed from one of Thorin’s storage drawers, confident and beautiful in a way that the younger Fili can’t quite manage yet. 

“Young Kili,” says, and the warmth in his voice makes Kili’s heart pump faster. “How old are you now?” 

“Twenty-seven,” Kili answers promptly. “And you?” 

“Seventy,” Fili admits. “Hmm, I don’t remember this—is it one of the times I miss myself?” 

“I don’t know,” Kili says. “Fili—you—the current Fili is at Mister Nemer’s right now.” 

“Nemer!” Fili seems delighted. “That old rock. You apprentice under him too, you know, in a couple of years. I remember he—well. Best not to give it away.” 

Kili doesn’t quite know how to deal with Fili laying out the secrets of his future, so he says nothing. 

“Oh,” Fili sighs, “You’re still so young, aren’t you?” 

A calloused finger tips his chin up, and Kili fights the urge to swallow. He looks at Fili’s nose (a good sized nose, handsome) instead of his eyes, and so sees the way Fili’s lips part in a silent sigh. 

“All right, then,” he says, and drops his hand. “Do you have anything planned for today, or shall we stay in the meadow?” 

“I—I don’t know,” Kili says. “This is only the second time you’ve come since we knew you were you. Do you want to say hello to mother?” 

“The second time!” Fili is surprised. “Then… huh. The first time I came back I gave you a list of dates, didn’t I?” 

“Yes, Fili and I wrote them all down. It’s at home, though,” Kili adds, “so I can’t show it to you right now.” 

“No, no, that’s fine.” Fili tugs on one of his braided moustaches. Kili tries not to stare at his fingers or the clasp on the ends of his hair and largely fails. “But tell your brother to start memorizing it. He’s going to need to talk to you about it when he jumps back one of these days.” 

He laughs at the face Kili makes. “I know. Makes your head hurt, doesn’t it? Time travel will do that to you. And as for visiting mother... Well. Best not. She gets all strange when there are two of me. It’s unsettling, I suppose.” 

“I like it,” Kili says. “I like _you_.” 

Fili smiles at him, the same brilliant smile he sees every day on an older face. “I know.” 

Kili can feel the heat rushing to his cheeks, and turns to hide his flush. “I brought food,” he says. “We could have lunch.” 

“That’d be _great_ ,” Fili says. “I’m always hungry after a jump.” 

“You’re always hungry anyway,” Kili retorts, forgetting for a moment that this Fili is different from his own, that this Fili may not enjoy the teasing of a dwarf so much younger than he is, no matter if it is his brother. But Fili laughs, then catches him around the waist and rubs his knuckles in Kili’s hair. 

“Ahh, hey!” Kili kicks wildly, bucking and squirming, but Fili is so much larger and stronger than him that fighting is practically useless. “Lemme go! Fili--!” 

A lucky hit to Fili’s midsection has them tumbling down into the grass, knocking the breath out of Kili’s lungs and grinding dirt into his elbows and knees. They wrestle with the smell of crushed green in their noses, with sun and sweat and a scattering of petals from a patch of wildflowers they decimate in their struggle, and in the end Fili allows Kili to pin him. 

“I win,” Kili pants, palms on either side of Fili’s head and knees on either side of his waist, hips weighing the older dwarf to the ground. Brown hair hangs in a tangled curtain around their faces. Fili’s eyes are bright, his face flushed for all that he isn’t breathing too hard. 

“Have you?” Fili drawls. He leans upwards and for one terrifying moment Kili thinks about kissing him – about dipping his chin and parting his lips, about going down onto his elbows so that their torsos align – but then Fili has his arms hooked under Kili’s thighs and he is airborne, flailing helplessly for a handhold as his stomach lurches. 

Fili grins down at him. Kili’s head is about level with Fili’s knees, hips and thighs held fast against Fili’s chest. 

“You cheated.” The words come out almost as a giggle. 

“What was that?” Kili drops a half-inch, Fili pretending to let go. “I don’t hear you acknowledging my victory, little brother.” 

“All right, all right!” Kili twists, palms flat on the ground to take some of his weight. “I lost, now let me down!” 

“I should drop you on your head,” Fili says, but lays Kili down gently, walking backwards and stooping until Kili’s hoot heels are settled once again in the grass. When that’s done he gives them a kick. “Come on then, lazybones. I believe you promised me lunch.” 

“Oh,” Kili looks at Fili’s feet in dismay. “I forgot to bring you boots.” 

“I’ve got tough feet.” Fili waves away his concern. A smirk tugs at his lips. “Do you want to see?” 

Kili rolls away from the threatening toes moving toward his face, scrambling upright. “No! You’re disgusting.” 

“I’m _hungry_. And now you’re ready to show me where the food is, aren’t you?” 

“Fine, fine.” The low arch of the wicker basket peeks up beyond the fringe of waving grass in the middle of the meadow and Kili makes his way over to it. Fili follows him. “Mother made bread and beef.” 

Fili heaves a great sigh. “Bread and beef,” he says dreamily. “Sounds delicious.” 

He digs through the basket and starts eating immediately while Kili spreads a patchwork blanket over the ground. 

“So,” Kili says. He sounds hesitant, shy. Uncertain. “What do we do?” 

“Do?” Fili’s mouth is full. He swallows before he speaks again. “What do you mean, do?” 

“Well,” Kili gestures. “If you’re jumping around in time, isn’t it for a purpose? Don’t you come back to _do_ something?” 

Fili makes a face. Shrugs. “To be honest, I’ve no idea. It’s more inconvenient and dangerous than anything. Thorin’s made me learn unarmed combat, and I taught myself to pick locks and steal and climb trees and run barefoot through the woods. I can’t control it at all, see,” he clarifies at Kili’s wide-eyed look. “When I get scared or upset, I jump, and I can’t bring anything with me. So I could end up anywhere.” 

“But you’ve never been really in danger, have you?” Kili asks anxiously. 

Fili clasps the back of Kili’s neck. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he says, not quite answering the question. “Don’t worry. Your big brother can take of himself. And even if he can’t, I can.” 

He winks. 

They spend the rest of the afternoon lazing around, playing children’s games and sparring. Fili teaches Kili how to do a leg sweep, and Kili practices until Fili flops back into the dirt with his hands up, groaning theatrically about becoming a giant bruise if they go on any longer. Of course, then he springs upwards and knocks Kili over right next to him, so they have to laugh and wrestle until daisy petals scatter through their hair and the grass stains will never come out of their trousers. 

“I promised Mama I’d be back before dark,” Kili says eventually. He’s sprawled out on his back, one leg over Fili’s and an arm trapped beneath Fili’s torso. 

“Mm,” Fili hums in reply. “Don’t worry, I probably won’t be here much longer anyway. I’ll leave the clothes underneath the tree with the hollow between its roots, you know the one. You can come get them tomorrow.” 

“I should leave you a knife. And another set of clothes. And some boots. That way if me or Fili aren’t here—“ 

Kili is cut off by Fili’s laughter, deep and rich. 

“What?” he says, pouting to hide his hurt. “I was just thinking about looking out for you.” 

Fili turns his head to look at him, and the warmth in his gaze is only enhanced by the deepening lines around his eyes. The current Fili – Kili’s Fili – doesn’t have them yet, and Kili is reminded sharply that this isn’t his brother, not quite, not really. His stomach clenches. 

“I know you are,” Fili says. He sounds grown up and wise, regal like Uncle Thorin. “You’re a good dwarf, Kili. I’m glad you’re my brother.” 

Kili can feel the heat creeping up his neck. He clears his throat. “I’m glad you’re my brother too.” 

They lay in comfortable silence. 

In the end, Kili wraps up a pair of old boots, a tunic, trousers, flint, a hunting knife, and a set of beads he carved himself. Fili doesn’t look quite right without decoration in his hair, and the loosening of his beard braids annoys him. Kili can tell. 

He tries not to imagine Fili’s pleased surprise at the extra gifts, how he’ll look with Kili’s craftsmanship hanging by his chin. 

He fails. 

**(Kili is 27, Fili is 32 and 64)**

“Did you make these?” Fili sounds almost accusing as he inspects the beads braided into his older self’s hair. 

“Yes.” Kili lifts his chin. “What of it?” 

“They’re very nice,” Fili – older Fili -- _Frerin_ says. His sharp look has Fili subsiding sullenly, brows drawn together in a pout. “I appreciate them, Kili.” 

“Thanks,” Kili says, subdued. He wants to feel happy: and he does, with Frerin’s warm older eyes looking at him with pleasure, but _his_ Fili’s anger makes guilt sit low in his stomach. He’s never given Fili beads before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khudzith – “dwarf that is young”   
> Ugmil nadad – “older brother”


	2. Chapter 2

**(Kili is 77, Fili is 82)**

A dark, creeping dread hangs heavy in the air. 

The company has made camp in a corridor off the main treasure room, the stink of dragon suffused through the halls and lingering in their nostrils. They feel safer in a group rather than in separate accommodations, not to mention that every empty room contains the ghost of their former residents. None of them feel comfortable sleeping in what may be a dead dwarf’s bed. 

Thorin is wroth – has been, really, since Bilbo left them and took the Arkenstone with him. The _Arkenstone._ Fili shakes his head. Perhaps the burglar never really connected with them after all, despite the long days and nights together sharing stories. Despite the fact that they saved each others’ lives. 

He may as well have run Thorin through with Sting. It would probably have hurt less. 

Fili feels the rising tide of fear inside him, aching in his limbs and twining around his throat. The sensation is akin to what he experienced when he fell out of a tree when he was twenty, the sharp spike of adrenaline stealing his breath and making his fingers go numb, but now it is like he is suspended in time, moving through molasses. Each second drags the fear out longer; each blink brings darkness and foreboding. 

“Brother,” Kili whimpers quietly in his sleep. His hand is wrapped around Fili’s and squeezes in distress. Fili leans over to brush Kili’s hair away from his face, fingers lingering over his brow. 

“Shh,” he hushes, humming snatches of a lullaby under his breath. “I’m here. You’re fine, I’m here, I’ll keep you safe.” 

_I will always keep you safe,_ Fili doesn’t promise aloud. Here, in the hallowed halls of his line, he does not wish to make an oath he may not be able to keep. 

He closes his eyes and waits for sleep to take him. 

When he wakes, he is not in the same place. The air is cold over his skin; he is naked. 

A jump, then. 

It’s dark and quiet. The quiet is of an enclosed space, walls muffling with the softness of wood so that the loudest sounds Fili can hear are his own breaths. But as he listens harder he realizes that isn’t true; there are voices speaking with hushed urgency, the sizzle of a fire and the slopping of water. 

He sits up. He’s in a room. Despite the dark his eyes make out a bed and trunk; he heads for the trunk and is unsurprised to find the metalwork on it familiar, the garments inside smelling like Thorin and the forge and his mother’s soap. He dressed quickly and pads out into the hallway on bare feet, heading towards the voices until he hears somebody say “Lady Dis.” 

This gives him pause – while it isn’t exactly _forbidden_ to let others interact with him in the past, he has no idea when he is. If his other self is still a child, being a strange dwarf in the Durin household in the middle of the night will endear him to no one. 

“No!” Another voice says. “Kili…” 

His feet move without input from his mind. The realization that it was _his own_ voice that cried out, harsh and delirious with pain, that it is _his own_ body lying on his mother’s kitchen table dripping blood onto the floor, smashes into him like a hammer. 

“No,” he says weakly, echoing his future self. “Oh Mahal, no.” 

Heads whip around to stare at him. His mother snaps out of it the fastest, pulling him into a hard and fast hug with tears in her eyes. The healer stares at his face, then his double’s. 

“We need towels,” Dis says, voice low. She is obviously choking back strong emotion. Fili wants to comfort her, but he has no idea how. He fetches cloth instead. 

“Well?” Dis snaps at the healer. “Help him!” 

Fili finds himself moving closer to – well, himself – sickly fascinated by the paleness of his skin, the messy belly wound. There is dirt and blood caked on matted into his hair, a gash across his nose. 

He looks Fili’s age. 

The healer is saying something but Fili isn’t paying attention. Future Fili’s eyes have slitted open, and while his gaze is unfocused, his brow is furrowed and his mouth moving with urgency. 

“I’m here,” Fili murmurs, bending closer. He can smell the copper stink of blood, the bitter reek of fear-sweat. “I’m here, brother. Tell me what I need to know.” 

“Ffff,” his future self hisses. He tries again, “Fili?” 

“It’s me.” 

“It…. hurts.” A hint of a whimper. “Kili…” 

“Kili?” Fili can feel the tension coiling in his gut. A headache threatens to pound at his temples. “What happened? Is it Erebor?” 

“Ere—bor,” his counterpart mutters. “Yes. Orcs. Thorin… I have… I have to… Kili…” 

“Shh,” Fili soothes. “Kili is fine. Kili will be fine. You’ve warned me, I’ll look out for him, I promise.” 

“Sorry.” The word is little more than a breath. “Sorry…” 

Fili can feel the hot wetness rising behind his eyes, choking his throat. “It’s all right,” he whispers. “Rest now.” 

“Mama?” 

Fili looks up sharply. A little yellow-haired dwarfling is standing in the doorway, eyes wide and frightened. He is looking at Dis. 

“Fili!” Dis wraps the dwarfling up in an embrace, and Fili remembers suddenly how he saw a mysterious dwarf bleeding when he woke up one night. There are _three_ of him here, in this place and in this time, which means that this moment is important. Very important. 

“Fili,” he says, bending over again. He touches his other self’s cheek. “Brother. Stay awake. Stay alive. You need to tell me what to do. Come on!” 

The older dwarf lies still and silent. Fili feels sick. He can’t pull enough air into his lungs; his vision swims. 

_No,_ he thinks, shaking his head. He can’t faint now, or jump back – he has to help, to ask his future self when everything will go wrong, to make sure he doesn’t die. 

“Are you all right, lad?” somebody says, but Fili’s heart is pounding in his ears like a drum. He swallows convulsively and hunches over, trying not to retch. “Somebody get a bucket, quick--!” 

Fili jumps. 

He lands on his knees in clinging muck, a ringing in his ears. It’s only the fact that he falls to his hands as well, dry-heaving, which saves his life. 

The orc blade, chipped and stained with blood, whips over his head close enough to feel a rush of air in its wake. Fili flips onto his back, stomach still spasming, and kicks out. The orc snarls as its knee buckles and Fili stifles a cry of his own at the impact of his bared foot with the orc’s studded leather armor. Fili’s hands scrabble for a weapon. When he finds none he grasps a handful of mud and blood and flings it at the orc’s eyes, springing upward when it falls back with a cry. They wrestle for the orc’s sword, Fili’s hands gripped tight over the orc’s filthy nails, his heart pounding and his mouth sour; with a mighty wrench he turns the blade so that it impales its owner and the orc coughs up black blood, eyes bulging in death. 

“Kili!” Fili finally finds his breath. “KILI!” 

He picks up a fallen axe and a better sword, forgoing a shield due to his improved speed without any armor. There is no sign of Kili’s silhouette, a dwarf with a bow strapped to his back, nor of his distinctive strokes with a broadsword within the seething mass of the battlefield. 

“Kili!” He calls again, and cuts the throat of an orc from behind. 

“Fee…” he thinks he hears, but the screams of the dying and the clash of weaponry mask the origin of the sound. 

_”KILI,”_ he bellows with all his strength, and finally sees a flash of silver against familiar dark hair, the deep blue of Kili’s hood. His feet gain cuts and scrapes as he races over, but he doesn’t care. 

“Kili,” he chokes out, falling to his knees. “No.” 

Kili blinks at him, blood on his brow and seeping through the tears in the cloth at his chest, staining his hands – and Fili’s, too, as he puts pressure on the wound. Kili whimpers a little, eyelids fluttering. 

“Fili…?” 

“I’m here, brother,” he whispers. It feels disconcertingly familiar; he has just done this with a future version of himself, gasping and dying leagues and years away. “Shh, shh, I’m here. You’re going to be all right.” 

“It hurts,” Kili whimpers. “I—“ He coughs, wetly, then groans with pain. “I think m’gonna die here, Fee…” 

“Shh,” Fili repeats, drawing Kili’s head carefully into his lap. He cups his brothers’ cheek. “Don’t say things like that.” 

“You’re naked.” Kili blinks at him. “You’re not…?” 

“I’m not from now,” Fili confirms. 

“Fili…?” 

“He’s fine,” Fili lies. “I’ll be just fine. You’re the one I’m worried about, all right? You need to stay still, save your strength.” The blood keeps leaking out from underneath their palms, between their fingers. There is _so much_ blood. Fili’s throat is tight. 

“Tired,” Kili mutters. 

“Don’t close your eyes,” Fili pleas, even though he knows that by now that it’s a lost cause. “Kili, don’t close your eyes!” 

“Stay with me?” Kili mouths. He manages to open his eyes enough to look at Fili, pupils huge with pain. 

“Stay safe?” 

“I promise.” Fili rubs his thumb along Kili’s cheek, feeling the tears welling up. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Love you,” Kili manages to sigh before he falls silent, muscles going lax. Fili checks frantically for a pulse, for breath, but there is none to be found. He feels blank. Numb. 

And then he feels the scream clawing its way up his throat. 

He doesn’t remember much before the jump, just the utter surety that nothing will be good enough ever again, that his blows are not strong enough or fast enough and that the orcs are not dying painfully enough for what they have done. He fights until the burning in his chest is physical, the shortness of breath due as much to exertion as grief. 

When he lands on the hard stone floor of Erebor, his sob of relief wakes Kili. 

“What…? Fili!” Worried hands check him over, flitting over his face and chest, settling firmly around his calves just above his cut and bleeding ankles. “You’re hurt!” 

“Kili.” Fili forces his eyes open, drinking in the sight of his brother alive and unhurt. He smiles. “You’re all right.” 

“Of course I’m all right.” Kili tries to sound dismissive, but he can’t mask the worry in his voice. “What happened to _you_?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outline

  * Fili is the time traveler
  * One of the first couple of scenes: little Fili, the household all woken up and scrambling around a stranger his mother won’t let him see (hidden in the guest room and everybody is really worried – he hears the word “dying” – but when he finally worms his way inside there’s nobody there.
  * Fili is there the day of Kili’s birth


  * Fili knows him as ‘Uncle Frerin’ until about a week before he jumps, because his future self finally tells him the truth then
  * Strangely, Kili already knew (he could tell)
  * Selfcest, he teaches himself how to masturbate/fuck (and to please Kili!)
  * Fili realizes that Kili is in love with him – older him. Cue weirdness and jealously. (In reality, Fili has told Kili when he asked who he married in the future about them, and Kili is in reality in love with now!Fili – kind of.)
  * “Not yet,” futureFili keeps telling Kili whenever he tries to kiss future!Fili. “You’re still too young for me. Plus future you gets jealous.”


  * They never see Fili older than he was at the battle of the Five Armies.
  * A couple of times Fili jumps forwards – he never finds Thorin, himself, or Kili, just Balin and Dwalin looking older  OR HIS MOTHER WHO IS SUPER SAD???
  * Dis doesn’t want Fili/Kili to go with Thorin on the quest to Erebor because they remember Fili dying – Thorin agrees at first, but then a young blonde child appears. When they ask who he is he says he’s from Erebor and his uncle is king under the mountain, and they think he’s Fili’s kid. Really, he’s Fili.
  * _On the eve of the battle, Fili and Kili know that this is probably it. Thorin knows it too – he was there when Fili came back to the past dying – but doesn’t say anything_ _because Fili told him, a long time ago, that he didn’t regret following him for a moment._
  * _Fili comes back right in time for Kili to die in his arms._


  * OR
  * _Fili, on the eve of battle, jumps back to the time where the other him is dying in the past, and the shock of it (and need to change things) propels him forward INTO the battle, where he is just in time to cradle Kili in his arms as he dies (and reassure his brother that he’s okay, he’s not hurt, at least he will live through his battle – lying through his teeth)_
  * _And the next day he goes into battle nonetheless, and it happens all over again._
  * HAHAH FUCK WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF




End file.
